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Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 Stockport · Rabbi Benjy's Shiur

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  Good morning. When we succeed in seeing others
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  not for the colour of their skin or the religion or lack of it,
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  the clothes they wear, that might just indicate how wealthy
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  they are or the job that they do.
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  We might just realise the truth, so obvious and so basic, but
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  which somehow gets tragically lost in every generation.
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  That truth is our shared humanity, the universal soul
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  being created in the image of God.
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  It matters not how we express it, but that it is ideally this
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  truth that we are not merely individual human beings but
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  rather part of a collective humanity being, was beautifully
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  captured by a 13th century Persian poet, Saadi Shirazi.
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  I have it on good authority that the poem sounds better in
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  Persian, but here's a there's a translation.
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  He emphasises that we are a humanity being, a single body
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  where the suffering of 1 is the concern of all, and the poem
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  defines humanity by our capacity to feel compassion and the
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  shared feeling of the struggles of others.
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  Human beings are members of a whole in creation of 1 essence
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  and soul. If one member is afflicted with
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  pain, other members uneasy will remain.
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  If you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human
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  you cannot retain. Today, Holocaust Memorial Day
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  gives us an opportunity that we often deny ourselves.
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  We pause, take a few moments to remind ourselves of the
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  consequences of what happens when we demonize distance, deny
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  others the gift of life that we desperately want and demand for
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  ourselves and. Eyewitness to the liberation of
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  Auschwitz on the 27th of January 1945 shared On January the 27th,
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  I saw the first Soviet soldiers in the main camp Auschwitz 1
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  skirmishes could be heard nearby.
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  They passed through the camp and on elevations placed against the
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  wall, began shooting outside the wall.
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  Soviet artillery set up and opened fire in the same
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  direction, causing the windows of the adjacent blocks to
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  shutter. Several German grenades fell on
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  the camp near block 11. Towards evening, Russians
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  arrived at the camp on horseback.
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  It was deep snow from all corners.
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  Sick and weak prisoners crawled out.
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  The cavalry moved on and the night was full of joy but also
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  anxiety, because that first Russian patrols could withdraw
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  and the Germans could return to finish their work.
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  There were an enormous number of barracks.
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  In many of them people lay on bunks.
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  It was skeletons covered with skin.
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  Conversations with them were brief because they were
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  completely devoid of strength and found it difficult to say
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  anything despite we hear this year after year, despite the
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  well-intentioned leaders saying never again in that sombre sound
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  that worked so well for the sound bites but lacks any real
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  depth of meaning. Humanity did do it again after
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  the Holocaust. Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur
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  changed humanity once again. And as the poem said, if you
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  have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot
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  retain. On the Jewish Holocaust Memorial
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  Day, Yom Ha Shawar, which takes place after Passover, Germany,
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  around April time, our community comes together with the
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  survivors, the children of those who survived, and maybe even
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  third, possibly 4th generation. And that sounds a little bit
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  strange to talk about a fourth generation, but the pain often
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  gets transmitted, as does the responsibility to tell the
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  story. My mother has a friend who is
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  the daughter of a survivor, and it definitely impacted the way
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  she was. She was raised that fear of
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  allowing a child out at night because maybe they won't come
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  home again. Paranoia and a sense of being
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  others all the time. Last year there were very few
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  survivors left but each survivor and thank God in my community in
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  in Cheadle Gatley in the Shoreham, we have a number of
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  beautiful members who are Holocaust survivors who attend
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  synagogue weekly and they definitely are a role model of
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  resilience and tenacity for anybody.
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  But with the passing of time, that spirit must be picked up by
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  all of us. After what they experienced,
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  many chose to rebuild their lives, to marry and to have
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  children, which seems such an ordinary choice.
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  But how could it be an ordinary choice at a time when families
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  were brutally ripped apart and children were killed and
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  husbands and wives were separated?
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  That ability to love again, to make the choice as the Hebrew
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  Bible echoes throughout its text over Hauter Bakhayim choose
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  life. A choice that might seem obvious
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  to us that throughout history has not always been the obvious
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  choice. With the passing of time, our
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  Chief Rabbi has noted a panic in the voice of survivors.
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  I lament. Growing up in London in the 80s
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  and 90s, I was surrounded by people who never shared their
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  stories. I prayed with people who Manuel
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  partisans in the forest, who went through the the the camps
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  didn't know, who didn't know their stories.
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  And I cry inside to think I was touching greatness.
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  But who spoke, who spoke in those in those decades?
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  That's only now, as time has moved on and they've begun to
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  think that they've got a responsibility, that stories are
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  emerging. The chief Brabe says the panic
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  in the voice of survivors. They are now making a desperate
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  appeal for us to become representatives.
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  This year we take up the mantle of Zahar.
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  Zahar in the Hebrew word means remember, but it doesn't mean
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  remember, stand still, bow your head and go silent.
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  It means remember and now do something.
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  It's a it's an active verb. It's not a passive moment of
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  time. And the responsibility isn't
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  just for the bloodline of survivors, It's for all of us.
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  The previous Chief rabbi, Rabbi Sacks, thought there's a
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  profound difference, one of his famous teachings, between
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  history and memory. History is his story, an event
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  that happened sometime else to someone else.
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  And if we look at all these genocide that's happening to
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  someone else, then we don't feel connected.
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  Memory is my story, something that happened to me, and it's
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  part of who I am. History is information.
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  Memory, by contrast, it's part of my identity.
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  I can study the history of other people, are the cultures, are
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  the civilizations, and they deepen my knowledge and they
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  broaden my perspective, my horizons, but they don't make a
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  claim on me. They are part of the past.
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  Interesting facts that you can scroll on a social media and
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  learn something about the past. Memory is the past as present as
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  it lives on in me. Without memory, there can be no
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  identity. And maybe that's an
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  uncomfortable truth that we have to live with on a day like today
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  that for all the goodness that we'll get there, that we believe
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  about each other and humanity. Part of our awkward memory is
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  remembering what we did to each other, the depths that humanity
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  can stink to, and the possibilities that we've
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  witnessed over time. We have so many different
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  identities, have our name, our jobs, our relationship status,
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  our social media handles. More identities today than we
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  ever had over history. All of these different and at
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  times competing identities will disappear if we ignore our own
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  stories and our memories. The memory demands A truthful,
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  honest and often brutal self reflection.
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  The current Chief Rabbi gave a beautiful anecdote once spoke of
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  a violinist who win a string snapped mid performance, chose
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  not to stop, but to make music with what was left.
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  The story goes during a concert at Avery Fisher Hall in 1995, it
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  sucked. Pearlman, his violin snapped
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  with a loud crack. Instead of stopping, he told the
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  conductor to start over and play the entire concerto on three
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  strings. When he finished, he told the
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  audience, you know, sometimes it's the artist's task to find
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  out how much music you can still make with what you have left.
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  And the Chief Rabbi extended it in a talk to the Holocaust.
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  And I quote the broken string. He compared the snap string to
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  the moment survivors found their freedom in 1945, only to realise
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  that they had to make life with what was lost and to keep going
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  even though their families were incomplete.
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  The miracle of the music would have been extraordinary if even
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  one survivor had found the strength to live a happy life
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  that so many survivors chose to live and to have families to
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  positively impact the world. And that's such an important
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  thing to remember today. They didn't just survive as
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  grumpy and sad people, they turned their hands.
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  You'll hear nature and please God, you'll see Peter cure.
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  It's one of the happiest 94 year olds I know and trust it's
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  moving to to Chidon, the synagogue.
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  I've have been blessed to meet many.
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  I've hang out with more 90 year olds.
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  There's definitely a blessing in this part of the country.
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  Never met so many 90 year olds like maybe the air, the water, I
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  don't know what's going on here, but something.
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  And he, he lives with a joy different.
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  He lives life and happiness. And so many of them live with
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  that happiness, more so than many teenagers.
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  Such an effort to be as miserable as many teens.
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  I taught 23 years in high school.
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  I have the right to speak about teenagers.
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  Sometimes their their misery was exhausting.
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  Like, how do you work so hard to be so miserable?
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  Look at the people who've gone through real miseries.
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  Not that phone died. No, they don't have 5G.
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  But real issues. And they turned it around and
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  they lived a joyful life. And what's that call to action
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  that the survivors could make music with what was left than we
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  in the world today have no excuse for despair or apathy.
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  Abrahamic faiths venerates many of the same personalities in
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  Islam. Nabi Musa, the prophet Moses is
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  mentioned over 136 times in the Quran.
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  For Christians, Moses as the Israel Israelites to freedom and
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  gave the the the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai the Jews, we call
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  him Moshe Rabbenu, Moses, our teacher.
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  His words continued to guide our community.
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  Before he passed, he reminded the Jewish people who would
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  cross into the Holy Land to set up a society where the weakest
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  members would be looked after, where justice would win over
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  might, where the stranger would be welcomed and loved like the
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  native born. His final comments are a demand
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  to learn from history and from those who came before.
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  Zakharia Mat Alam remember the days of olds.
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  Many young people today look with a certain level of
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  disinterest that the older generation can't quite keep up
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  with them. It's a little bit of an inverted
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  world. I remember my grandparents were
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  people you went to for wisdom, to show you how to do something.
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  Today the world has YouTube. Who needs someone who's lived
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  with experience. You watch a video, but pretty
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  much carry out brain surgery. There'll be some doc.
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  I think it's a joke. I have a friend who's the doctor
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  didn't do brain surgery, but he was asked in his in his early
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  years in hospital when he was a registrar, he was had to do some
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  procedure on a minor procedure on somebody that came in with
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  A&E. So he didn't quite remember
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  exactly what to do. He watched a video then did it.
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  It was successful, but how terrifying that you wouldn't go
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  to a senior. I will not give you his name.
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  Do not first, but in the world. It's an inverted world where the
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  Bible took about looking at the elders, looking up to those who
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  have lived through times and learned from them.
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  And today we almost because the many can't keep up with
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  technology and the speed and the conversation is slower and many
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  people get bored before they know they're even bored and
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  they're swiped. It's a difficult one to look at
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  the past and say I respect you, I recognise something in you
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  that we are lacking. That is the the resilience, the
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  tenacity and the passion for life and the lessons they lived
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  through. But then King Solomon flips it
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  and says there's nothing new under the sun in Ecclesiastes
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  and that sounds like a real miserable there's nothing new
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  under the sun, then what's the next tragedy?
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  But we're not. Judaism isn't fatalistic, and
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  the Bible doesn't believe in that because you choose.
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  Life is all about make better choices.
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  And we, I believe, through education, through a desire to
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  want the future world to be so much better than the world that
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  we've lived until now, to start the new page, that choices can
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  make a difference. So bridging generations gives us
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  this year that impetus and that instruction to be those bridges
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  to teach people that we are, that we love, that those who are
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  in our lives to look to the to the generations.
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  And probably coming up will be the not the survivors, but the
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  next generation who learnt from them, who, who inherited the
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  story for us to take their stories further because they are
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  our greatest role models. So finally, in this solemn
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  moment of reflection, must commit to transition from being
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  passive listeners of history to be the shamrim, the guardians of
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  its lessons. Like the survivors who chose to
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  rebuild, we must commit ourselves to the work of living
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  as a humanity being, refusing to allow the voices.
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  Oh, and there's so many and sometimes it's deafening that
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  preach division that want to poison our shared body with
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  cancerous hatreds. Not everything today is a matter
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  of personal choice. Some things I want to tell you
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  are just wrong. Hatred is just wrong.
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  There's no space for it. It's not their opinion.
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  It's just a cancer that we mustn't let mutate and
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  metastasize and dominate the humanity being.
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  We have tools to do this, but we need an unquenchable desire to
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  do so. Also.
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  We have we must ask ourselves, what would we?
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  What world would we want to live in and what world do we want to
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  create for our children and grandchildren?
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  Let's honour the survivors by making the correct choice.
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  Thank you very much.